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Delaney Carpenter (Chairperson of the MCSA Rock Climbing Committee, Cape Town Section) recently stood up at this year’s Rock Stock to inform all climbers of the current deteriorating relationship between climbers and the Rocklands’ landowners and has urged all climbers to adhere to the below rules when climbing in Rocklands:

Bury your faeces and carry out your toilet paper. If the ground is too hard to bury your faeces, please carry it out with you and dispose of it in the campsite bins. Poop bags are available for free at De Pakhys. (A special note about this: Tea Garden has been closed primarily due to this problem. Animals such as baboons may eat human faeces and could contract diseases such as Tuberculosis and hepatitis, which could prove detrimental to the population)

Do not litter – carry everything you bring in with you back out with you and dispose of your litter in the bins at the campsite.

Stick to the allocated paths marked by cairns and as illustrated in the guidebook. Diverting from these paths causes far more erosion than is necessary and may cause the extinction of certain sensitive plants in the area.

No graffiti on rock surfaces. (Black Shadow boulder has been closed to climbing due to graffiti)

No pof is allowed in Rocklands. The resin damages the rock surfaces and this damage is irreversible.

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The complete disrespect of boulderers for the land on which they climb is a very serious and has become a very real threat to bouldering in Rocklands.

Rocklands bouldering is in peril.

Rocklands does not belong to the climbers.

Our access is not a right, it’s a privilege and our treatment of the land is the difference between us being allowed to climb in Rocklands and us being banned from climbing in Rocklands altogether.

Irresponsible boulderers have caused this problem and boulderers are the only ones who can fix it.

Please respect the land you climb on in South Africa and adhere to the above mentioned rules. Your privilege to climb in Rocklands depends on it.

Notice from Delaney Carpenter, Chairperson of the Mountain Club of South Africa Rock Climbing Committee, Cape Town Section.